The Chess Olympiad is a two-yearly team chess tournament of the highest level in the world. The World Chess Federation coordinates the tournament and selects the host country. During the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE organized online Chess Olympiads in 2020 and 2021, with fast time control influencing the players’ online ratings.
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The Origin
The first Chess Olympiad was an unofficial competition, and an attempt to include chess in the 1924 Summer Olympics failed because of problems distinguishing between professional and amateur players. When the Olympic Games were held in Paris, the first unofficial Chess Olympiad was also held in Paris. On the day the Chess Olympiad ended, July 20, 1924, the World Chess Federation (FIDE) was founded. FIDE organized the first official Chess Olympiad in 1927, which was held in London, and since 1950, it has been hosted every two years on a regular basis.
Qualification of sports
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognized chess as a sport in June 1999 and recognized FIDE as an international federation for this sport. As a member of the FOC, FIDE follows the rules of the FOC, including the introduction of the controversial drug test. The future of chess as an Olympic sport is not yet clear. As for the team tournament organized by FIDE, it is called “Olympic”, which is a historical term and does not imply any connection with the Olympic Games.
Tournament
Any FIDE-approved chess group may send a team to the tournament. Each team consists of a maximum of five players, four regular players and a reserve team (prior to the 2008 Dresden Championship, there were two reserves). Initially each team played against all other teams, but then the number of teams grew and this became unfeasible. Therefore, the seeding teams were initially ranked before the tournament. The seeding system was later found to have some drawbacks and the Swiss system tournament was adopted in 1976.
The men’s team championship trophy is the Hamilton-Russell Cup, which was offered by the British magnate Frederick Hamilton-Russell as the first Olympic Chess Trophy in London in 1927. The winning team can keep the trophy until the next tournament. The women’s team championship trophy is the Vera Menchik Cup, named after the first women’s World Chess Champion.
FIDE
FIDE or World Chess Federation is an international organization. It is usually called by its French acronym FIDE. Headquartered in Switzerland, it connects national chess federations and serves as the governing body for chess tournaments.FIDE was founded on July 20, 1924 in Paris, France. Its motto is Gens una sumus, Latin for “We are one family.” In 1999, FIDE was accredited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Up until May 2022, FIDE has 200 member federations.
Swiss system tournament
Swiss system tournaments are a format of non-elimination tournaments with a fixed number of rounds, but much less than round robin tournaments. Each competitor will not play against all other competitors. Competitors meet one-on-one in each round. Pairings are made using a set of rules to assure that each competitor plays against an opponent with a comparable running score, but does not play multiple matches against the same opponent. The winner is the competitor with the highest total score in all rounds. In the case of an even number of participants, all competitors play in each round.
If the number of contestants is small, a full round robin system is appropriate. A single-elimination system can quickly reduce the number of contestants, but the best contestant does not necessarily win. This is because good contestants who meet in the early rounds may have a bad day, or eliminate each other and exhaust each other.
The Swiss system strives to offer a clear winner among a large number of competitors and a relative small number of rounds, without terminating participation because of a bad result. The system was first adopted by Julius Müller in 1895 at a chess tournament in Zurich, thus becoming known as the “Swiss System”.
2022 FIDE Chess Olympiad in India
The conference was the 44th edition of the biennial chess competition. As a result of COVID-19, this is the very first time it has been held considering that 2018. There were on-line iterations held in 2020 and also 2021, however these were referred to as the FIDE Online Chess Olympiad.
This is the first time India is hosting a Chess Olympiad. Virtually 350 teams from 187 nations contended in the Open and also Women’s departments. Indian chess master and also 5 times world champ Viswanathan Anand was the coach of the Indian gamers for this event.
The first Women’s Chess Olympiad was held in 1957. Given that 1976, the ladies’s as well as open divisions have been held together.
The highlight of this event was the bronze medal for the females’s team. This is the initial medal ever before won by India in the ladies’s group. The Indian A team of Koneru Humpy, R Vaishali, Tania Sachdev and Bhakti Kulkarni won the bronze medal after losing 3-1 to the United States in the final round. Ukraine won the gold medal, while Georgia took the silver. This was the start of better days for Indian ladies’s chess.
In the open group, the young Indian B team including D Gukesh, Nihal Sarin, R Praggnanandhaa and Raunak Sadhwani won the second bronze medal for the nation after defeating Germany 3-1. Uzbekistan and Armenia won the gold and also silver medals, specifically.
It was India’s 2nd bronze medal at the Olympics after winning one outdoors category in 2014. In addition to the two medals in the team event, India won seven individual medals, consisting of two gold, one silver and also 4 bronze. India likewise won the distinguished Gaprindashvili Cup, which is granted to the nation for its cumulative performance in the Open and also Female’s groups.
Indian medalist at the 2022 FIDE Chess Olympiad
Teams
- India A – Bronze medal in the Women’s Team event (Koneru Humpy, R Vaishali, Tania Sachdev and Bhakti Kulkarni)
- India B – Bronze medal in the Open category (D Gukesh, Nihal Sarin, R Praggnanandhaa and Raunak Sadhwani)
Individual
- D Gukesh – men’s 1st board gold medal
- Nihal Sarin – men’s 2nd board gold medal
- Arjun Erigaisi – men’s 3rd board silver medal
- R Praggnanandhaa – men’s 3rd board bronze
- R Vaishali – women’s 3rd board bronze
- Tania Sachdev – Women’s 3rd board bronze
- Divya Deshmukh – women’s reserve board bronze